America - The Official Thread
- Thread starter ///M-Spec
- 39,320 comments
- 1,768,042 views
- 6,963
- South Africa
Last night, I've finally got around to try out Dr. Pepper. Found a local place that sold a variety of the brand's sodas. Wasn't sure which one was the original flavour, so I grabbed the nearest one, which turned out to be "Creme Soda". And my verdict is...
Americans, I gotta say, that was rather disappointing. The flavouring was flat and meh for a fizzy drink. Wasn't worth the extra coin needed to buy it (the drinks were imported from the US of A, and one can of Dr. Pepper cost over four times a comparable can of local soda.)
I'll try other flavours in due course, but that first impression... Hmm.
Americans, I gotta say, that was rather disappointing. The flavouring was flat and meh for a fizzy drink. Wasn't worth the extra coin needed to buy it (the drinks were imported from the US of A, and one can of Dr. Pepper cost over four times a comparable can of local soda.)
I'll try other flavours in due course, but that first impression... Hmm.
- 29,880
- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
Cream soda Dr Pepper isn't that special. Neither is cherry Dr Pepper and I love cherry-based pop. Dr Pepper is a lovely drink though. The original one is just called Dr Pepper; no particular flavour or variant indicators.
Last edited:
- 2,953
- Columbus, Ohio
When it comes to American sodas, the alternate flavors can be summed up like this:
Cherry: Extra sugar
Creme Soda: Double extra sugar with a tiny amount of vanilla extract
Vanilla: Slightly less extra sugar, but with enough vanilla extract to make it taste like sediment
Lemon-Lime: Triple extra sugar
Orange: Triple extra sugar with a bit of citric acid
Grape: Industrial waste
Mountain Dew alternate flavors are sort of an exception because the flavor is masked by enough caffiene to cause a tension headache if you drink it too fast.
Cherry: Extra sugar
Creme Soda: Double extra sugar with a tiny amount of vanilla extract
Vanilla: Slightly less extra sugar, but with enough vanilla extract to make it taste like sediment
Lemon-Lime: Triple extra sugar
Orange: Triple extra sugar with a bit of citric acid
Grape: Industrial waste
Mountain Dew alternate flavors are sort of an exception because the flavor is masked by enough caffiene to cause a tension headache if you drink it too fast.
- 6,067
- Simcoeace
LOL
Joey D
Premium
- 47,449
- Lakes of the North, MI
- GTP_Joey
- GTP Joey
We literally fought a war so we wouldn't have to be subjected to the King or Queen of England and their royal shindigs.
I guess to be fair though, Queen Elizabeth ruled for so long that we probably just forgot how coronations were even done.
I guess to be fair though, Queen Elizabeth ruled for so long that we probably just forgot how coronations were even done.
- 87,336
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
... that wealthy smugglers could keep their own pockets lined, after one of the richest companies on Earth threatened to undercut them courtesy of a big-ass economic bailout from government. And you needed the French to do it.
Besides, by that time the monarch of the UK had very little to do with what government did because we had a whole thing about that a couple hundred years earlier.
Joe Biden's memory is probably shorter than a Liz Truss leadership.
Good job it's not Trump, as he'd lunge for the crown himself.
UKMikey
Premium
- 18,321
- Grea'er Laandan
- UKMikeyA
- UKMikeyA
According to the Daily Torygraph Dr Jill or Kamala may be attending the royal shindig in his place. Then again, they've tried to spin it as Joe being too old to travel across the Atlantic twice in one month. 🤔 (Note: article dated April 1)
web.archive.org
Joe Biden too old to travel for Coronation, say insiders
Concerns for president's stamina if he makes repeat trips across Atlantic as he is already scheduled to visit Northern Ireland this month
web.archive.org
Last edited:
- 17,239
- United Kingdom
I would love it if Biden just tweeted out #NotMyKing #AbolishTheMonarchy though.
ROAD_DOGG33J
Premium
- 14,280
- IL, USA
- holyc0w1
- holyc0w
#BostonTeaParty2023
- 11,862
- Marin County
ROAD_DOGG33J
Premium
- 14,280
- IL, USA
- holyc0w1
- holyc0w
- 11,862
- Marin County
I've been to Harlan Crow's house. 
- 19,675
- Alabamamania
...and then we Purchased a big piece of land from France that wasn't really "theirs" and we incurred our first National Debt, never to bring that balance above water again.
But we did get an inexhaustible supply of walleye, crawdads, and inland navigation out of it.
Sorororosuarus was up to it
Last edited:
Keef
Premium
- 25,114
- Dayton, OH
- GTP_KeefRacer
- GTP Keef
Completely unrelated. California needs to introduced an updated, graduated property tax which, at its highest tier, at least doubles residential property taxes on the type of properties you see in Atherton and Beverly Hills. If these communities won't allow rezoning for denser housing developments to help cure homelessness, then they need to pay up in cash to help cure homelessness.I've been to Harlan Crow's house.
I think nationwide, property taxes should vary based on some combination of property value, the owner's net worth, the owner's income and capital gains, as well as the amount of time the owner spends actually living in the property. That methodology would particularly attack extremely wealthy foreign citizens who own American property as investments to artificially increase property values while removing stock from locals who may want it or need it. It should be prohibitively expensive to leave residential property unoccupied by an owner or renter, yet my understanding is this is relatively commonplace in California.
Last edited:
- 7,872
- Horbury, West Yorkshire
- GTP_Sprite
Our Property Tax (council tax) is different to my neighbour next door. Our house is in a higher band because we have a side passage which leads to our yard and by having this our house is wider by 3 feet.
It makes sense to have higher taxes for those taking up more room. If you want more space when travelling you have to pay, if you want a bigger vehicle you have to pay. Land use and home size should be no different unless you’re using the land for farming to help feed people etc.
- 7,612
- Exorcet
- OE Exorcet
Ideally, nothing should be prohibitively expensive on purpose. While I imagine it's not very common I happen to know someone who could be deeply effected by your tax idea without being extremely wealthy. This is someone with various medical conditions who relies on specialist doctors and has developed professional relationships with them. At the same time this person is looking to move to another, cheaper state. In the long term new doctors will need to be found, but in the short we considered keeping a property in the old state that would be vacant most of the time to provide a convenient location to use when making trips back to see the old doctors. It's not strictly necessary, there are other options certainly, and we may not end up going down this route, but I really hate seeing obstacles like this because a problem was tackled with a hyper focus on one goal (get the rich) without really considering other effects.
Danoff
Premium
- 34,011
- Mile High City
This is actually the case. The more densely populated the area "wants" to be based on aggregate demand, the higher the property value of the land and houses within that area. Since property tax scales with the property value, these houses are indeed taxed at double the amount of other properties. In fact, much more than double when you look outside of the city.
It's more like the opposite. If you're renting a place out, staying there for too much of the year can cause you to pay extra tax.
- 11,862
- Marin County
Good luck with that. CA probably has the cheapest property tax in the nation, adjusted for property value.
I should mention this explicitly...this is an amendment to the CA constitutions and cannot be changed by the legislature or any other government body. It can only be overturned with another ballot measure.
Last edited:
- 13,167
- Seattle-ish
Gym Jordan is attacking New York DA Alvin Bragg.
Note the comment "Alvin Bragg’s pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents."
The truth is different. "Statistics from the NYPD show a decrease in almost all major crimes in February compared with 2022, including a 15% drop in shootings. New numbers from the department show an overall crime decrease of 5.6% year over year."
So Bragg is suing him, saying his actions are a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” him over his prosecution of Trump. Bragg, in his lawsuit, said he’s taking legal action “in response to an unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing New York State criminal prosecution and investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.”
Sounds like Jordan has a bad case of FAFO in his future.
Note the comment "Alvin Bragg’s pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents."
The truth is different. "Statistics from the NYPD show a decrease in almost all major crimes in February compared with 2022, including a 15% drop in shootings. New numbers from the department show an overall crime decrease of 5.6% year over year."
So Bragg is suing him, saying his actions are a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” him over his prosecution of Trump. Bragg, in his lawsuit, said he’s taking legal action “in response to an unprecedently brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing New York State criminal prosecution and investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.”
Sounds like Jordan has a bad case of FAFO in his future.
